With Fundraising Commitments, you can require your peer-to-peer participants to raise a minimum amount for your campaign or event. Participants commit to making up the unraised funds themselves if they don’t reach the goal. In this article, you’ll learn how to enable commitments and charge participants for unmet commitments. You’ll also see how Fundraising Commitments appear to participants.

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Fundraising Commitments are a minimum fundraising amount that peer-to-peer participants commit to raising. Commitments differ from normal fundraising goals in that participants agree to cover any unraised portion of the amount they’ve committed to.

Enabling Fundraising Commitments ensures that you raise a minimum amount through each peer-to-peer participant, which can help with overall campaign goalsetting and fundraising. If you’re offering incentives for fundraising categories, commitments can also help offset the cost of those incentives.

When Fundraising Commitments are enabled, participants will need to agree to the goal amount during registration and link a payment method that will be used to charge them if they don’t raise the target amount by the deadline.

To enable Fundraising Commitments on a peer-to-peer form, navigate to Campaign Settings and scroll down to Fundraising Settings.

Toggle on Enable Fundraising Commitments.

Scroll down to Commitments, Goals, and Thermometers to determine what should count toward commitment balances. If you make changes to these settings after participants have agreed to commitments and started fundraising, it will affect the status of those commitments.

You’ll configure the Commitment Amount and Deadline Date within each of your registration categories.

In the Categories area of your form, you can decide whether to offer a Single Category or Multiple Categories. Configuring Fundraising Commitments will vary slightly depending on which of these options you choose.

For single-category campaigns, the Fundraising Commitment settings are in the Category Settings area.

Here, you can set the Commitment Amount and Deadline Date.

Once you’ve set a Commitment Amount, you can change it. However, any participants who registered before you made the change will still be committed to the original amount that they agreed to raise during registration.

You can also change the Deadline Date for a commitment, but you can only extend the deadline, not shorten it.

For multiple-category campaigns, the Fundraising Commitment settings are configured on a per-category basis. Navigate to the Manage tab in the Categories area, and then click Edit if you’d like to require a Fundraising Commitment for an existing category.

Toggle on Enable Fundraising Commitment for Category. Then, you'll configure the Commitment Amount and Deadline Date for each category, which means you can offer categories with different amounts and deadlines.

Once you’ve set a Commitment Amount for a category, you can change it. However, any participants who registered before you made the change will still be committed to the original amount they agreed to raise during registration.

You can also change the Deadline Date for a commitment, but you can only extend the deadline, not shorten it.

If you set a Minimum Personal Goal or Default Personal Goal in the Campaign Settings, it will still apply to any categories without a commitment. Commitments will essentially override those settings when applicable.

To view and manage participants’ Fundraising Commitments, head to the Participants table under Constituents in your peer-to-peer form.

Here, you’ll see each participant’s commitment status in the Commitment column.

If the commitment is unmet, you’ll see Not Met and the amount remaining.

If the commitment has been met, you’ll see Met.

There are also statuses for commitments that have been Waived or Charged, and you’ll see Error if you attempted to charge a commitment to an invalid payment method. If there was a payment error and the commitment hasn’t been met, you’ll also see the amount remaining.

You can filter by a specific Commitment Status using the Advanced filtering options above the table.

To view a participant’s commitment details or update their payment method, click Edit at the far right of the Participants table.

On this screen, you can see the participant’s commitment amount, amount they’ve raised, and their remaining balance.

You'll also see a tab for Fundraising Commitment. Clicking this tab will display the Commitment Deadline and a place to change the Commitment Payment Method.

When the Commitment Deadline has passed, you’ll need to charge each participant who has not met their Commitment Amount.

To charge participants individually, click Edit in the Participants table.

On the right side of the Edit Participant screen, you’ll see two Commitment Actions: Charge Commitment and Waive Commitment. These options also display on the Fundraising Commitment tab.

Click Charge Commitment to charge the remaining balance to the participant’s payment method on file.

If the payment method you have saved for the participant has expired or is otherwise unable to be charged, you’ll see an Error status. In that case, you’ll want to follow up with the participant to get an updated payment method. Once the method has been updated, you can attempt to charge the participant again.

If you would like to waive a participant’s commitment, you can do so by clicking the Waive Commitment button in the Commitment Actions area.

Waiving a commitment cannot be undone.

From the Participants table, you can perform Commitment Actions in bulk, so you don’t have to charge or waive commitments individually.

To perform a bulk action, click the checkbox next to the name of each participant you’d like to edit, or click the checkbox in the table header to select all participants who are eligible for a bulk action. Then, click Manage Commitments above the table.

From the Actions drop-down, select Charge Commitment Balance or Waive Commitment. Then click Apply to perform the bulk action.

You’ll see a confirmation modal before you complete the action for the selected participants.

Keep in mind that charging a lot of participants all at once can take several hours. After you confirm your bulk action, you’ll see a message at the top of the screen. You’ll receive a confirmation email once the participants have been charged.

When a participant visits your campaign’s registration page, they’ll see a callout inviting them to commit to raising the commitment amount by the deadline or cover the difference.

For single-category campaigns, this callout will appear with the single registration option. For multi-category campaigns, the callout will appear on each category that has a commitment associated with it.

Participants will see another message about the commitment below the Fundraising Goal field. The default value in the goal field will be the Commitment Amount. Participants can increase their goal above that amount, but they cannot set a goal that’s lower than the Commitment Amount.

On the Payment Details screen, participants will see a message about securely storing their payment method to be used in case they don’t meet their commitment.

After inputting a payment method, participants will have to check a box to sign the Commitment Agreement before they can complete their registration.

The Commitment Agreement authorizes your organization to charge the participant’s payment method if they don’t meet the goal by the deadline.

If a Primary Participant registers any Additional Registrants with commitments, the Primary Participant’s payment method will be used to cover the Additional Registrants’ commitments. A message warning registrants about that responsibility will also be included in the Commitment Agreement.

If Additional Registrants would like to update their payment method to cover their commitments themselves, they can do so in the Fundraising Center.

A note about Fundraising Commitments will also appear in the Registration Summary.

You’ll also see Fundraising Commitment prompts when registering participants through the Virtual Terminal. To learn more, check out this article.

After registration, participants can view their commitment progress and update their payment methods in the Fundraising Center.

On the My Registration page, they’ll see a Commitment tab.

Participants can also get directly to this page by clicking Manage Your Commitment in the quick-start menu of the Fundraising Dashboard.

Here, they can view their commitment deadline, commitment amount, amount raised, and remaining balance. They can also update their Payment Information if they need to.

Additional registrants will see the same information on the Commitment tab in their Fundraising Centers. However, in the payment method area, they’ll see a message that the person who registered them is currently tied to their commitment, and they’ll be prompted to add a new payment method.

If a Primary participant wants to review the commitment information and progress for any of their additional registrants, they’ll head to the Manage Registrations page and then click Edit for the participant they’d like to view.